Tet festival of Kinh people is a perfect combination of rites of Buddhism and ancestors' religion. It is up to each family and their timing schedule for these rites to keep changing and being modified a bit, however, all rites are run in accordance with lunar days.
The very first event which officially signals Tet festival if the rite to see God of Kitchen off, back to Heaven on the 23rd of lunar December yearly. Vietnamese people, from the North to the South, all find it very familiar the image of God of Kitchen to ride a carp flying back to Heaven to report to the Jade Emperor result of that family in a year. Hence, apart from "thèo lèo" cake and votive paper to worship God of Kitchen, it is a must to have a couple of carps. As soon as the rite completes, this couple is released to signify Tet festival in terms of mercifulness.
The 24th is considered the day for cleaning and re-decorating ancestral graves. On this day, descendants buy gosh money, steamed glutinous rice, meat, cookies to worship their ancestors on their graves. At the same time, descendants also clean their ancestors' graves before Tet festival.
The 25th is to worship to see Gods (God of Fortune, God of Earth, the Virgin, "duc quan cong") off, back to Heaven. It is up to each family to buy proper sets of votive papers to worship Gods accordingly.
Next, at 30th noon, when tidying up their house for welcoming Tet festival has almost completed, each family has to lay a worshipping tray firstly to welcome gods to enjoy Tet festival including God of Kitchen, God of Fortune, God of Earth, etc and then their ancestors to reunite with their descendants to welcome New Year's Eve and stay on Earth for three days. New Year's Eve (on 30th) also known as "tru tich" night, is the holiest moment of transition of a lunar new year. At that moment, people leave behind sorrows of their old days; eagerly hope for a new year of prosperity. It is also the optimistic spirit of "tong cuu nghenh tan" (seeing off old days, welcoming new ones) during traditional Tet festival.
Rites in turn are as follows:
First morning: worshipping Heaven and Buddha
Second morning: worshipping the dead indoor
Third morning: worshipping God of Operation. Additionally, during three Tet days, it is custom to worship with rice ancestors, particularly on the third, rice worshipping rite is to see ancestors off, back to Heaven until anniversaries of one's death or the last day of a year to welcome them back.
The 6th: worshipping birthday of Fortune God
The 8th: worshipping "Sao Hoi Nhi Thap Bat Tu"
The 9th: worshipping birthday of the Jade Emperor
The 10th: worshipping God of soil and officially end Tet festival.
Need to say that worshipping is really a beautiful custom which is indispensible during Tet festival. It reminds us that Tet does not belong to any individual, but an association of people, descendants and ancestors, the alive and the dead; a spiritual compatibility between people and their believes just simply because both earth and heaven seem to wake up at the solemn transition moment, between the start and the end.
